Yo, Tweeters ... wanna work for #MTV?
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Armeni Kamciyan
So the major new release in social media news this week is MTV’s search for the 1st MTV TJ.
What is a TJ? It’s a Twitter Jockey. MTV is searching for someone to hire to be the face of their Twitter endeavors for a cool 100K yearly salary. They have already selected 18 candidates and are now opening nominations to the Twitterverse to fill the last 2 remaining spots. If you would like to nominate someone you know, or if you want to be awesome and nominate me, you can do so by clicking here.
Of course, being the social media nerd that I am I nominated myself. Unfortunately so did everyone else and their mom (literally people’s moms). From what I gather from the existing candidates it seems that MTV is looking for people who are hip with pop culture coolness, and seem like they would be cool to chill with IRL. They seem not so much interested in a Twitter following number.
THANK YOU MTV!
Even if I don’t win a chance to compete I’m glad for two things.
The first being that MTV is making it clear that success via social media depends a lot on true genuine human interaction. If your company can project a realistic and relatable person behind that Twitter handle than you are utilizing social media to its fullest marketing extent. Social media is exactly that, SOCIAL. We don’t like posers in real-life. We don’t like spammers, automated DMs, voices that lack personality, and Twitter follow bots in social media. MTV understands this, and that’s why their candidates reflect that.
The second is that I’m super stoked that MTV is setting an example for every company out there wondering whether they need a social media budget.
You do. You really do.
I think $100k is completely fair. Listen folks, social media is hard work and you are ALWAYS on. The Internet is 24/7 and it moves fast. 8 hours real time is 8 days Internet time and a social media nerd must always be staying current. I don’t think a lot of companies realize how much work goes into it, and how important it is as a part of their marketing strategy.
So I’m hoping as the contest progresses it changes the corporate understanding of social media. In the next couple of weeks MTV will select two more candidates, and then all 20 will compete in a series of Twitter challenges that will reveal who the social media guru is. Only 5 will make it to the live finale show in NYC where they will compete in elimination rounds as the audience votes on their favorites.
Tell Armeni how much you LOOVEEDDD her article on twitter here.